a lover of dogs, books, road trips and dry wit talks about faith, failure, social justice, love in all its forms and (sometimes) shoes

I Would Like Carolina to Be Known for Other Things. . .

“Wake Up and See the Carolina Blue: Color Blindness in Wake County, NC.”, is one of many well-written commentaries I have read in the past months about the actions of the Wake County School Board. The author of this piece, Margaret Smith, writes from a sociological perspective with a clear and compelling voice about the mismanaged, polarizing current state of the WCPSS. This is an issue that has been monopolizing headlines for close to a year now in Wake County, and truth be told I’m tired of thinking about it. I’m tired of hearing about it. I’m tired of talking about it, but yes, I am pointing whatever readers may be out there to the latest piece that I found thought-provoking, in the hopes they may take another four minutes out of their time and read it, too.

Why? While it’s true that we’re all probably sick of hearing and talking about it (especially those of us “from here,” but even those from other states as well at this points), our collectively short attention span is no excuse to moving onto something else. There have been many things written, true. There have been countless school board meetings which have so far seemingly had no effect to the confederacy of dunces that were elected onto the school board in the first place. However, the children in Wake County deserve better, and that responsibility falls onto the shoulders of the adults in Wake County. From what I remember of my own school years, a large part of it was learning the implicit lesson of sticking to something when you really, truly did not want to; when it wasn’t popular, or when you were sick to death of it. How can we do otherwise, having had the benefit of a good education, especially if it means that there is even the slightest chance that turning our attention elsewhere means that the quality of the education that they receive may suffer?